Idaho County free press. [volume] (Grangeville, Idaho Territory) 1886-current, 1887-03-11
FLOWER LORE.

How the Philosophy Of People Imprints
Itself on the Surroundings of Life.
To this day the flower lore OF Europe
remains strongly associated with Chris
tan mythology, and from the way
flowers mixed themselves with legends
of the Virgin or st. John the Baptist
we may learn how, in an earlier epoch.
they entered into the stories of Zeus,
Hercules, Indra or Osiris. AS the
caroub bean came to be called st.
Johns bread, gooseberries his grapes,
and the NORWOOD his girdle, so in the
Vedas, one plant is known as lndra's
food, AID another as his drink. just
as in Roman times numberless
plants were named after Hercules,
it would be difficult to enumor-
ate all the plants which claimed to
be Our Lady's tears, her tresses, her
mantle, or her smock. Thus does the
general philosophy of a people tend to
imprint itself on the common sur
roundings Of life. In the flax fields OF
Flanders grows plant called the rood
selken. the red spots on whose bright
green leaves betoken the blood which
i
subsequent rain or snow has ever yet
been able to erase. In Palestine the same
account is given of the colors of the
red anemone. and in Cheshire of the
spots on the 0rchis DldcuLdtG. The crown
of thorns has in Germany given to the
holly (holy tree) the name of Christdorn,
while in France it has caused the haw-
thorn to be called the noble thorn"
| m III \ FOL hao
associated with the barberry. Catholic
fancy believed that the st. Johns wort
| showed red spots on the anniversary OF
the beheading of the Baptist. and per
ceived in the passion flower of Peru the
resemblance of nails. In the same way
the Turks see in the geranium mallow
that was touched by the garments OF
Mohammed. while the Chinese see in
tea leaves the eyelids of a pious hermit,
who, to resist his inclination to sleep,
cut them off in despair and threw
them away. There is, however, a
rather remarkable mOnOtony in the
poetical faucies about flowers to
which their various peculiarities have
given rise. White flowers, as a rule,
spring from tears, red ones from
bushes or from blood. Thus in Bion' 5
Idyl. anemones represent the tears shed
by Venus for Adonis, while lilies-of-the
valley are in France the Virgins tears
Catullus has it that the rose is red
from blushing for the wound it inflicted
on the foot of Venus as she FASTENED
to help Adonis; but, according to Her
rick, roses lost Their wilderness when
after being worsted in comparison Of
their whiteness with that of Sappho's
breast, they blushed and ''first came
red" SO in Ovid. the fruit of the mul
berry was originally white, till, after
witnessing beneath it the sad suicide o
> Pyramus and Thisbo. it blushed fol
: shame forever. In Germany the heatl
owes its color to the blood of TIL,
r heath N slain in the sanguinary con
t versions of Charlemagne; the inhabi
, tants OF the uncultivated fields, wher
l the heath (heiie) grew, coming to b.
3 called heather, (hcide,J much as il
A South Europe the inhabitants of tn
S villages remote from the influence @
t the church came to be called pagan
+ from pagtts. Il village; so that our wore
e heather appears to be a derivativ
V from our word heath. Gentleman
: Mdqd ztHe.